


Safe

by flerovium



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Coping Mechanisms, Implied mental illness, this is basically just vent writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 22:37:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7732441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flerovium/pseuds/flerovium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenma has a list of names in his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Overview

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just 1.6k words of venting, there's pretty much no actual plot. It's a coping mechanism that I use a lot that I thought fit Kenma's character pretty well, so I decided to use him as a way to put it into writing.

For years now, Kenma had kept a list of names in his head. To most, if they were to see the list written on paper, it would appear as though they had no connection whatsoever to one another. It included a range of people from close friends to online acquaintances to famous internet personalities to video game characters. There wasn’t much of a chance that anyone besides Kenma would be able to understand the significance of these meticulously chosen people, or how they could be connected, but they were the few people who truly meant the world to Kenma.

He referred to it as his Safe List (capitalization necessary). It was the list of people Kenma knew he could go to if he needed comfort or security, although they all offered it to him in different ways.

The close friends could be sought out for quiet understanding, who could listen to him vent without judgement, or who would simply understand what was happening and wouldn’t ask him too many questions. Sometimes, it was nice to have someone who would know what was happening, why Kenma was suddenly seeking help, but it wasn’t always what he needed.

There were other times when it was comforting to have someone distract him without even being aware that he was in need of distraction. This was why he liked to talk to people online. By starting up a chat conversation with one of them, it was easy for him to hide the state he was in. They could talk about nothing important for anywhere from a couple minutes to several hours, and it had a surprisingly calming effect on him. Ignorance really can be bliss, although in this case, not specifically in the case of the ignorant.

Of all the real people he considered Safe, not all of them would necessarily be connected. After all, for some of them, it took years to gain Kenma’s trust in that way, but for others, it could take as little as a month. That didn’t mean he preferred one person over another, just that his relationships with them worked in different ways. Yet another reason not to tell people about his list; he was worried they would interpret it wrong, and could begin to make incorrect assumptions.

The one he’d always been embarrassed about, though, was the internet personalities. He had spent years himself thinking that the whole concept of obsessing over internet stars (Instagram and YouTube users, and the like) was a little bit absurd. After all, that was a real person with a real life, not someone who should be treated like a fictional character, or a close friend. It always seemed so creepy to him that there were people who became so intensely invested in the lives of total strangers. And yet, in the past while, there have been a couple that had somehow made their way onto Kenma’s Safe List. He wasn’t sure why, and he would never admit it, but their presences online made him feel safe, despite the fact that he’d never even spoken to them before. They just seemed kind, and the simple fact that they existed could help keep him calm.

He spent a long time trying to justify this to himself, before giving up entirely. He wasn’t bothering anyone, anyways.

The video game characters were a bit more self-explanatory. They served as a form of escapism. Even if he wasn’t playing the game itself, he would use the world, and its characters, to distract himself. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d imagined himself in the position of the protagonist of his favourite game at the time, or even as one of the side characters if they appealed more to him. Characters were always the easiest for him to seek out, so long as he had his PSP on him, he had access to a Safe Person. It was the biggest reason he carried it in the first place. It wasn’t so much of a form of personal entertainment, but more as a psychological crutch for when he needed to distance himself from a situation.

Unfortunately though, despite being the most reliable Safe People, fictional characters were always the loneliest. It was easy to get lost in the world of a video game, but it lacked that feeling of talking to a real person. It lacked companionship, and no matter how much Kenma claimed to not like people, he needed them as much as anyone else did.

It was unlikely that he would ever tell anyone about his list. He doubted they would understand, and even if they did, he didn’t see why it was necessary that they know. Sometimes he worried it was manipulative of him to keep it a secret, but he knew he would never have the nerve to tell anyone.

“Safe” after all, was not always an all-encompassing word.


	2. A Modification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a little more plot, and a lot more angst.

In all this time, Kenma had never really considered the idea that someone on his List may one day be removed from it entirely.

There was nothing dramatic to it, really. How could there be? His Safe List was just an imaginary list of names that nobody besides Kenma had ever known about. To most, it would seem rather inconsequential. But to him, the removal of that name from his list felt final, like a complete rejection of the relationship they once had.

It was amazing, really, how much one person can change in the span of just one year. But, he imagines that if there’s a year for a person’s life to change, if there’s a year for a person’s personality to change completely, it would have to be the first year of university. And that was exactly what happened. Kenma couldn’t blame him, nor was he at all angry at him for changing so dramatically, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed at just how much his best friend had changed on him through just one short year of separation.

While his List had never had any particular order of preference or importance, if Kenma had been asked a year ago who his most important Safe Person was, he would have pulled out his name without a second thought. He’d been there the longest, he’d known Kenma best, they’d shared the most together. Of everyone on the List, he was probably Kenma’s favourite. Perhaps that was why Kenma was so shaken when he realized that his name would have to come off.

Really, if there was anyone Kenma would blame for this, it was the new friends he had made that year. They took the person Kenma thought he knew best and moulded him to fit what _they_ wanted him to be. They got him involved in things he otherwise would never have gone near. They caused unnecessary drama around him, the newcomer, without him really doing anything to play a part. They took Kenma’s Safest Person and turned him into someone who, had Kenma met him yesterday in class, Kenma would have avoided at all costs.

It wasn’t until the summer following his departure that Kenma noticed the extent of the change. When all of a sudden he was back from university and hanging around Kenma every day again. They had talked during the year, of course, but mostly via text or Skype call, and not frequently enough that Kenma was able to fully realize the sudden change in personality.

But as soon as they were on way home after Kenma met him at the train station, he realized. This was not the person who left a year ago.

He didn’t like this person anymore.

He didn’t want to be around this person anymore.

He wasn’t safe with this person anymore.

Kenma realized that he had never felt true heartbreak before that very moment, when all of a sudden, it felt like a piece of his mind shattered. What would he do now? He didn’t have anyone else to fulfill that role on his List, which was arguably the most important of all of them.

Kenma’s mind suddenly flashed to the little things he was able to provide for comfort that he wasn’t sure he could trust anyone else with.

The late night text conversations when he was panicking over something silly that anyone else would probably hate him for worrying over. Talking it over, venting about it, until Kenma inevitably came up with a situation himself, but still making sure to say “thank you for helping me.”

The spontaneous hugs and hand-holding for comfort. Kenma was always a little uncomfortable with touching, he worried constantly with other people that he was being too pushy or too awkward or too needy. But with him, well, after so many offers for hugs when he was scared, after so many times of him grabbing Kenma’s hand on a busy street when he could tell Kenma was starting to get anxious, it only took so long for Kenma to realize that he never really did mind.

The emergency phone calls when Kenma posted something worrying on social media, reassuring him that he loved him, that Kenma was his best friend and he would never abandon him. He didn’t always know exactly what was going on, but he somehow always managed to say the right thing.

But not anymore.

Now, the comfort he offered felt forced.

Now, the hugs he gave felt as awkward as anyone else’s.

Now, the phone calls didn’t even come.

Kenma felt lost, abandoned. He had lost friends before, but never so suddenly, and certainly never someone so important.

“Safe” he realized, was not a permanent word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any errors in this fic, because I'm sure there are some, although I did edit it.


End file.
